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Forfeiture Shaping Law Enforcement Practices

"During the past decade, law enforcement agencies increasingly have turned to asset seizures and drug enforcement grants to compensate for budgetary shortfalls, at the expense of other criminal justice goals. We believe the strange shape of the criminal justice system today—the law enforcement agenda that targets assets rather than crime,20 the 80 percent of seizures that are unaccompanied by any criminal prosecution,21 the plea bargains that favor drug kingpins and penalize the “mules” without assets to trade,22 the reverse stings that target drug buyers rather than drug sellers,23 the overkill in agencies involved even in minor arrests,24 the massive shift towards federal jurisdiction over local law enforcement25—is largely the unplanned by-product of this economic incentive structure."